Apple and Caramel Pie: A BBQ Dessert

My Apple and Caramel Pie is a BBQ dessert that is always a crowd pleaser. Except for diabetics. They don’t care for it much. For the rest of us though, this is a nice, easy pie that you can make in your bbq that is going to really set your parties apart from all the others. Be warned though: this recipe is chock full of butter, brown sugar and cream so it’s not for the faint-hearted.

Brown sugar and granny smith apples… meant to be!

The first thing you need to do is take a look at your pie tin. It’s going to be difficult to turn it upside down so you need to make it as easy as possible. I actually just very gently and carefully slice and serve from my pie tin. If you do want to turn it out, make sure you butter the tin very well and possibly even cut out some baking paper and line your tin with that. If you don’t, well…

Left half my pie behind… oops!

Yummy yummy short bread…

I’m not particularly traditional with my pie. I just combine a whole bunch of things that I like. Starting with short bread. First, combine 1 and a 1/2 cups of plain flour and 125 grams of butter until they are crumbly. Then add a 1/4 cup of brown sugar and an egg yolk. Combine these to make a dough and press it into your tin.

Crumble… oh yes!

The second step is to make the top for your pie. I like to use a crumble top for my apple and caramel pie. I did warn you that this wasn’t traditional! To do this, you need to combine a 3/4 cup each of brown sugar and rolled oats, a 1/2 cup each of plain flour and butter and a 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg.

Granny Smith apples have never tasted so good!

Step three is very straight forward: core, peel and dice enough granny smith apples to fill your pie tin. And now it’s time to make your caramel.

How good does this look already!?

Liquid gold people…

Don’t eat it yet… (it’s hot!)

There are many different variations of caramel and you can use whichever type you like. I like to use a honey caramel. Which brings us to step four. To begin with, melt 250 grams of butter, 1 cup of honey and 1 cup of brown sugar. Melt, mix and cook these until the caramel is just foaming and then stir in 300 grams of double cream. Once it’s nicely blended, pour the caramel over the apples until the tin is full. Reserve the remaining caramel for later.

Golden goodness…

The final step in preparing your apple and caramel pie is to make your crust. You need to take handfuls of the crumble mix, flatten it out and press it together on top of your pie to form a crust. Be careful at this stage as the caramel will still be really hot. Now it’s time to hit the grill!

Time to get baked baking…

With your BBQ setup for indirect cooking, you want to bake your delicious apple and caramel pie at a medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour. Once the top is a deep golden brown it’s good to go. You can bake this in a gas BBQ which I have done, but in this case I’ve used (one of!) my trusty Weber kettles.

Here’s a good tip: if you want to add some smoke flavour, smoke the apples before you put them into the pie like I did for my piecaken. If you smoke the entire pie it doesn’t taste nearly as good.

Now for the hard part…

The next step is the hardest part: you need to let the pie cool and put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. If you cut into your pie straight away the caramel will still be liquid and instead of having pie you’ll have soup. So behave yourself and put the pie in the fridge!

This is why you wait…

And the angels sang…

To plate up, you really can’t beat the classics: grab a slice, put it on a plate and top it with some vanilla ice cream. And remember that left over caramel that you put aside (you didn’t eat it, right?), well you can now pour that right over the top. It will be nearly impossible for you to have just one slice!

What’s your favourite dessert to cook on a BBQ? Let me know in the comments below.